"I am as useless as a broken pot"
Psalm 31
Easter 5A, April 20, 2008
A Sermon by Paul McLain
‘I am as useless as a broken pot’ In the name of One God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
It was our first week in seminary. We, the new first year students, were so excited to be there. We all arrived early each day for Morning Prayer. St. Luke’s Chapel was set up like a small gymnasium with four rows of seats on the north side directly facing four rows of seats on the south side. The north side said the odd verses of the Psalms; the south side said the even verses. And we first years were determined to impress the Dean and upper-class students that we were the most motivated class to ever arrive at Berkeley Episcopal Seminary at Yale Divinity School.
So each day we said the Psalms louder and louder. It got to the point that we no longer noticed or cared about the actual words of the Psalms. We might as well been saying:
‘We’ve got spirit, yes we do, we’ve got spirit, how ‘bout you? No, we’ve got spirit, yes we do, we’ve got spirit how ‘bout you?’
Finally, one morning, Professor Beeley got up to have a ‘teaching moment’ with all of us. It was really a ‘call to Jesus’ moment. He explained to us how the Psalms are meant not to be shouted, but prayed. He talked about how the Psalms are to be spoken or chanted reverently, almost under the voice. He told us how important it is that each of us listens for how the persons next to us are praying the Psalms. Because there are days when one person may be so moved by the words that she is praying that I will need to ‘hold her voice up.’ And then the next day, this same neighbor may need ‘to hold my voice up.’
After his talk, we prayed the Psalms differently for 3 yrs. We became reverent and attentive to the words. We listened for each other’s voices. We began holding up each other’s voices. We began being held up by each other’s voices. And this morning, due to allergies, you may all have to hold up this raspy voice.
This morning’s Psalm, Psalm 31, is a Psalm of individual lament. Notice all the “I, me, and my” language. We hear verse 5 prayed by Stephen in today’s Acts passage as he was being stoned to death. And, according to Luke, this was the final prayer of Jesus on the cross: ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’
But Psalm 31 is a prayer that any one of us could pray at any time when we feel we’re at the end of your rope and we don’t know where else to turn. And when we pray this individual prayer as a community, as we did a few moments ago, it becomes transformed into a communal prayer as I reach out and hold your voice up in the palms of my hands, and you reach out and hold my voice up in the palms of your hands. Your sorrows and your anguish are now real to me. And mine are real to you. And, we begin to trust together that all our sorrows and anguishes are very real to God. And that God is cradling our voices and all of us up in the palm of God’s hand.
The image of God’s hand is very prominent in Psalm 31: ‘Into your hand, I commit my spirit.’ ‘My times are in your hand.’ God’s hand is our protection, is our destiny, is our home. In verse 7, we pray together, ‘I will rejoice and be glad because of your mercy; for you have seen my affliction; you know my distress.’
What afflictions does God see among us? Physical or mental illness, grief, marital and family problems, greed, addiction, sin, and poverty, to name a few. There’s an old saying that the role of the pastor is to ‘Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.’ The truth is, no matter what your so-called station in life, you can be either afflicted or comfortable at different times or you can be both afflicted and comfortable at once.
Two weeks ago, Bill Rogers, an Episcopal Social Services volunteer and member at our sister parish of St. Stephen’s
in northeast Wichita, said, ‘My prayer for this congregation is that we on the east side discover the inner Christian joy of being uncomfortable’ by working among the poor in downtown Wichita.’ What he meant was that our comfort can be our affliction. And his prayer is just as true for us on the west side.
This morning, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Episcopal Social Services Venture House here in Wichita. It is a remarkable ministry to the poor that many of you helped start, and where many of you volunteer countless hours. We’re in our parish drive this weekend for ESS and I encourage you to learn about ESS and pray about ways you may be called to be part of this ministry.
But, I also want to caution you about a danger inherent in doing social services work. It is the danger of seeing the staff and volunteers as us, and the clients and customers as them.
For many years, the Episcopal Church has offered a small book of prayers designed for clergy and laypersons as they visit persons in hospitals and nursing homes. It was called ‘Ministry to the Sick.’ But when the book was updated a few years ago, the committee said, ‘There’s something not right about the title. We who make these visits often receive as much or more ministry than we give. Let’s change the title from ‘Ministry to the Sick’ to ‘Ministry with the Sick.’ And they did. The new title recognizes that we’re all sick in one way or another. And that healing takes place in relationship. Just as bringing someone out of poverty takes place in relationship. This all begins through relationship with Christ the Healer and God the Provider. Then, it is also carried out through relationships among all of us as Jesus’ wounded healers.
Verse 12 utters something that we all feel from time to time -‘I am as useless as a broken pot.’ We’re all broken. And when we recognize our brokenness and our total dependence upon God, that’s the moment when, through the irony of ironies, our uselessness becomes useful to God. It’s at that moment that God connects one broken piece of pot to another broken piece of pot and, somehow, brings about wholeness. Through the mystery of the crucified and risen Jesus, anguish and hope, somehow, become one.
The motto of Episcopal Social Services is ‘Hope lives here.’ We, as Easter people, are called to live with the poor and bring the hope of Christ, while realizing that in the faces of the poor, we will see the face of Jesus, we may even see our own faces, and there we will find our hope.
In Verse 16, we pray: ‘Make your face to shine upon your servant, and in your loving-kindness, save me.’ We’re all servants – volunteers, staff, customers, clients. And we’re all in need of God’s rescue and salvation.
Harry is the staff person at ESS who works with volunteers to help clients develop skills to enter the workforce. Several months ago, Harry and the volunteers worked really hard with a man who felt he had no skills and felt he had no hope of getting a job or much else. They worked with him on basic life skills like showing up on time. They helped him identify prospective employers. They helped him prepare a resume. They taught him how to interview for a job.
A few months later, Harry was having the worst week of his life. His mother died. She had been in a nursing home for quite some time, and, as many of you know firsthand, the death of a parent is traumatic whether expected or unexpected. Harry’s mom had instilled faith and values in Harry. Faith and values that led him to his passion for the poor. Harry loved his mother and deeply grieved her death.
After his mom’s funeral, Harry arrived at his desk one morning and found a note-it was from the man I mentioned earlier. He wrote, ‘Harry, I got a job. It’s at Hawker-Beecher Aircraft making $14 an hour. This would never have been possible, if it had not been for you. Thank you.’ The note included a copy of the man’s Hawker-Beecher work badge for which he was so, so proud. For the first time in a week, Harry smiled.
Harry had held up this man’s voice in the palms of his hands. And now, this man held up Harry’s voice in the palms of his hands. And these two voices, now one, are cradled in the palms of Jesus’ hands.
At Episcopal Social Services, the hands of Jesus are crying out for more voices to hold, more broken pieces of pot to connect to one another and to him.
Go, live where hope lives, and be made whole. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
